The Portland-Raised Playwright Behind Artists Repertory's Palindrome Play Racecar Racecar Racecar

"For playwright Kallan Dana, having Racecar Racecar Racecar produced at Artists Repertory Theatre is a special homecoming. "I feel so lucky to get to come back and do a show there," she says. "The Portland theater scene was such a huge part of my childhood and adolescence." Now living in Brooklyn, Dana grew up in Multnomah Village. Theater was a huge part of her childhood, her parents often took her to Artists Rep shows,"

"Interim artistic director Luan Schooler heard about a production of Racecar in New York and reached out to Dana when she found out she was from Portland. The company wanted to produce a lineup of women playwrights with ties to the Pacific Northwest for their 2025-2026 season. "It's a truly original and startlingly funny play that explores complicated choices and relationships in a unique way," says Schooler."

"Billed as a Lynchian thriller, Racecar hops in the car with an unnamed father and daughter on a cross country road trip. As with anything described as Lynchian, something uneasy bubbles under the surface and things get weird. The duo picks up hitchhikers with inscrutable agendas, meets living memories from their past, and Jo March from Little Women makes a cameo. Dana cites Lynch's masterpiece Mulholland Drive and Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things as major influences on the piece."

Kallan Dana grew up in Multnomah Village and developed a strong theatrical grounding through frequent visits to Artists Repertory Theatre and early work at Northwest Children's Theater and Oregon Children's Theatre. Artists Repertory Theatre selected Racecar Racecar Racecar for the 2025–2026 season to feature women playwrights with Pacific Northwest ties. The play is a Lynchian thriller about an unnamed father and daughter on a cross-country road trip that confronts uneasy undercurrents, hitchhikers with inscrutable agendas, living memories, and a cameo by Jo March. Dana cites Mulholland Drive and I'm Thinking of Ending Things as influences and designed the play around a palindrome-like, symmetrical structure centered on a pivotal event.

Read at Portland Mercury